Sony is taking a positive step forward by adopting epub standards for its eReader P-505. What does this mean? Basically epub is a format for ebooks that can be used across many different hardware and software platforms. For a more detailed, and better description, check out this website.

What I find particularly refreshing about Sony’s move towards epub, is that it opens the doors for publishers to get their books onto the eReader. I came across this article from Publishers Weekly, and it states:

Brennan Mullin, v-p of Sony Audio, said the company was adopting the epub standard to encourage more vendors, booksellers and publishers to get involved in the e-book market and to broaden the amount of content that can be viewed on the Reader. The move to use epub is a significant change in approach for Sony, which has used its own standards and restricted consumers to buying e-books for the Reader from its own store. The use of epub will allow consumers to buy titles from a variety of outlets and will grow the number of titles compatible with the Reader to well passed the 45,000 now available through its online store.

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The magazine business is a tough one to break into. Even tougher are literary magazines. A majority never see a profit (even the successful ones) and many simply shut down because of rising costs, dwindling sales and a strained business model (you can only sell so many MFA program ads).

MagCloud just might make publishing that literary magazine you’ve been dreaming about a little closer to reality. I initially caught wind of this cool new service via this post from the if:Book blog.

According to MagCloud’s homepage, the process appears to be simple:

MagCloud enables you to publish your own magazines. All you have to do is upload a PDF and we’ll take care of the rest: printing, mailing, subscription management, and more.

And the price seems to be fair as well – $0.20/page plus the cost of shipping.

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…No, not the store Borders!

Before you plan a globe-trotting journey with your iPhone, Amazon Kindle/Sony Reader and that MacBook Air, you might want to keep reading.

A new international agreement planned to be adopted at the upcoming G8 Summit, would basically give border authorities of any participating nation the right to search your electronic gadgets in search of material that infringes on copyrights.

This means that if you are going through a border crossing (even through customs at an airport), the authorities can open your laptop (for example) and look through your files without probable cause. According to the Teleread Blog, which is where I first came across this story, says that there is little oversight for this agreement because it would…

…reportedly allow border guards in any covered country to seize your iPod, laptop, Sony Reader or Kindle—if the guards believed you’d used your evil gizmo to infringe copyright.

Lawyers to protect you? Fergit. And no appeals.

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Borders has opened up its very own slick new website to the public (which has been in beta testing for many months). I came across a brief article on Publishers Weekly while sifting through my morning email. You can check out the new site at Borders.com.

My first impressions are generally good, although I haven’t spent a whole lot of time exploring the site yet. You might remember that Borders used to partner up with Amazon.com (aff link) for selling books online, and has now cut the cord with the online retail giant. Now that Borders is on its own, I’m not sure how the prices will compare (next time I have some book shopping to do, I guess I’ll find out).

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It happens more than I care to admit. I’ll be watching something on television or reading a book and an interesting idea, concept, object, place or person stands out. I want to know more. Next thing I know I’m at my computer, on the internet, Googling whatever captured my attention. Of course, one of the first search results to appear always seems to be from Wikipedia- that bastion of internet knowledge that anyone can edit.

When I click on the entry, I’m immediately taken to an easy-to-read article where I can educate myself about that thing I saw on television or read in a book. The article is peppered with links to other Wikipedia articles. Another interesting item catches my attention in the original Wikipedia article, and I click on it, learning about something, perhaps, completely different. And so the pattern goes; surfing from one article to the next with little care about how they are connected. This continues on until I either have something else I need to do, or my eyes are about to fall out from staring at my computer screen for too long.

The internet has changed the way we do research. I remember having to take a trip to my local library to read about even the most trivial subjects. Now, a simple search in Google or your other favorite search engine is all it takes. Wikipedia as emerged as the "big fish" as far as online resources go. Most searches will bring up a Wikipedia entry, so you can’t miss it.

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One of the great benefits of the internet is that it levels the playing field for the small guys like myself. Bloggers are getting book deals. Authors are able to write, publish and sell their own work and completely bypass the traditional large publishing houses (unless you plan to sell your print-on-demand book through Amazon, then there might be problems, which I have written about here). The list goes on, telling the stories of Average Joe finding literary fame where there once was nothing.

I guess those large publishing houses began to feel left out, or at least, one of them did. I came across an interesting blog post on the UK’s Guardian Unlimited that talks about HarperCollins joining the Web 2.0 revolution. Now in beta testing, the publisher is letting authors with an unpublished novel, post the manuscript online and let others comment on it. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

You can currently only join by invitation, but membership will soon be available to anyone. While there is scope for avid readers to add to their own virtual "bookshelf", the site seems to be aimed particularly at budding authors – members are encouraged to "create a profile for your own book" and "start uploading your work". (And, if there’s any doubt about their intentions, the right-hand column contains the links: "Get Read. Get Spotted. Get Online.")

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Although this has little to do with literature/writing for now, it could have huge implications in the future. Of course I’m talking about the official iPhone SDK (software developer kit) release today. Why am I so excited about this? As an avid iPhone user, I’m counting down the days until someone out there creates an ebook reader for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

I have written about the iPhone before (read my review) and have maintained that the one missing feature that would make it perfect is an ebook reader. Hopefully this will be resolved soon. Although I’m now hearing that the third-party apps won’t be available for download until June! Aaahhhgggg! The wait is going to kill me.

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If you write science fiction, then you can ignore this post (although you can still read it, I don’t mind). But not too long ago, I saw something that got me thinking about something my own fiction really lacks: Technology. My characters don’t seem to make heavy use of the internet, cell phones or any other cool gadget that one can think of.

Are my characters technophobic? I honestly don’t know. If they are technophobic, they certainly don’t get it from me. I’m a proud iPhone user and recently purchased a GPS device for my car so I can drive to work each day knowing which street is coming up (and maybe get occasional directions). I also own a Sony Reader which is filled with ebooks I haven’t had time to read yet.

My characters, however, don’t use any of this wonderful technology. Maybe they don’t need a GPS device or a fancy cell phone/mp3 player/organizer/internet device. If I really think hard, I can probably recall a few short stories where a character brought out a cell phone. But it certainly didn’t stand out in the story.

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Maybe some publishers are starting to see the light! It has been announced that Random House and HarperCollins will start to use digital media to help push titles in both print and digital formats. Here’s a short excerpt from an article at Publishers Weekly:

Random House and HarperCollins both announced new e-initiatives aimed at using technology to sell more print and digital titles. The Random House Publishing Group is testing sales of a book by chapters, while HC has started a variety of online projects to let consumers sample titles on its site, and, in some cases, get an e-book for free.

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A little over a month ago I broke down and bought myself an iPhone, and then wrote about it here. Well, now I’ve had the phone for a little over a month and I wanted to take a moment to reflect on this amazing little device: I LOVE IT!

First, I’m not very tech-savvy when it comes to figuring out new gadgets. But the iPhone was different because I didn’t have to read the instructions until about a week later (and even then, it was just to glance at them). The iPhone is very intuitive, to say the least.

Secondly, the iPhone is an excellent reading device. I actually like reading articles on my iPhone more than my laptop computer. Scrolling down the text has a very natural feel to it, more akin to turning a page in a book, but somehow still different. In fact, if I had a choice between reading an ebook on my iPhone or my Sony Reader, I’d chose my iPhone without even thinking about it. Which brings me to my next point…

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